The assignee of the present invention has long been involved in providing mailing machines and systems for Government and industry, which efficiently and expeditiously handle all types of mailing needs. One of the areas of mail handling which has yet to be extensively explored, is the automatic handling of both sealed and unsealed mixed mail, and the elimination of interfacing between the machine operator and the postage meter.
Heretofore, many errors have occurred in the handling of mail, wherein the postage machine operator miscalculated the required postage, or accidentally set the mailing machine with the wrong postage value.
It is quite common for many large companies and stock brockerage firms to send millions of pieces of mail to their stockholders and clients at one time. Thus, if an error in postage is made, it may cost the company large losses. It has been known for an operator of a mailing machine to have misplaced a decimal point when setting a mailing run of millions of letters, which resulted in a substantial loss to the company.
Because the needs and requirements of businesses are expanding rapidly, there exists now more than ever, a need for more efficient and efficacious methods of handling mail, and for systems which will eliminate human error, while handling all forms and types of mail.
The present invention was conceived and designed to provide a system which would automatically handle in a continuous synchronized stream, a large quantity of mixed mail, and which would eliminate the interfacing between the machine operator and the postage meter.